In many areas of manufacturing, both production volume and product variety have increased. At the same time, many products have become increasingly complex and, therefore, require complex manufacturing processes. Though manufacturing has become increasingly complex, manufacturing must maintain profitability. Profitable manufacturing requires high yields, shorter lead times, and improved equipment utilization.
Automated material transportation is an important aspect of factory efficiency and resulting profit because it reduces costly manual labor, speeds the production process, reduces inventory, and reduces the payback time on expensive manufacturing equipment that can quickly become obsolete. In contrast, manual material transportation is costly and slow. Furthermore, human factors limit the ease by which a manual material transportation arrangement can be expanded and contracted to meet a variation in manufacturing throughput or product. Consequently, as production grows in volume and size, many industries desire simple and efficient automated material handling (AMH) systems.
As used herein, the term material handling, or material transportation, can refer to a variety of material handling tasks, including, but not limited to, moving simple piece parts from one place to another, and also to an entire production line, including assembly steps and movement of progressively assembled items.
The automobile industry uses automated material transportation in the form of a moving assembly line, making the manufacturing more efficient and resulting products less expensive. Production volumes and profits are greatly improved as a result of the efficient assembly line of material flow.
The semiconductor manufacturing industry also uses automated material transportation. An industry-wide collaborative effort backed by the SEMATECH consortium provides interface and architecture standards for semiconductor manufacturing equipment. The standardization of equipment for wafer fabrication plants has helped to increase semiconductor industry growth. The success provided by standardization of semiconductor manufacturing equipment shows the importance of defining standard interfaces and protocols for manufacturing equipment. With such standardization, a variety of material handling equipment and components, made by a variety of manufacturers, can work together to achieve a material handling task.
Hospitals and clinical labs lack an appropriate automated material handling system, yet are facing increases in the amount of material that requires transport. In hospitals, the material can consist of a wide variety of items. Many hospitals desire automated material transportation for transport of samples, transport of reports and documents (e.g., patient records), transport of instruments, and even transport of patients. Some hospitals have installed pressurized air-chute systems for transporting documents, yet these systems are expensive, limited in path extent, require operator attention at each transfer, and are unable to transport the variety of payloads mentioned above. Hospitals have also shown interest in the development of futuristic operation theaters (OT), which incorporate automated reconfiguration of machines, equipment, and lights; and automated transfer of samples and instruments. Standard interfaces for automated material handling systems can make the same system infrastructure able to transport material throughout hospitals, and position equipment in more limited areas such as in operation theatres.
Many general use automated material handling systems, though used for a variety of material handling tasks, still can only be applied to a specific industry. There is a growing need for automated material transportation systems that can have a general use, beyond a particular industry.
While a particular automated material handling (AMH) system might make economic sense for one particular industry, often the same system is not the optimum choice for a different industry. For example, the automated material handling systems used by semiconductor manufacturers for wafer processing of integrated circuits (ICs) are specifically designed to be suitable for use in cleanrooms. However, even a related industry, the Testing, Assembly & Packaging (TAP) industry that compliments IC manufacturing (or is a separate part of a single semiconductor fabrication facility), is not able to use the clean room AMH systems because they do not meet the economic constraints and flexibility requirements of the TAP operations. Most existing AMH systems are specifically tailored to particular applications, rendering them of little general use.
Since the need for automated material handling pertains to a wide range of industries, it would be desirable to provide a relatively inexpensive yet highly versatile general purpose automated material handling system. It would, therefore, be desirable to provide an automated material handling system that can be used in a wide variety of applications, for transport of a wide variety of types of material.